Just Play Along
by Sarah1281
Summary: Wolf 359 Long before he was Mr. Cutter, Mr. Carter's first day as Mr. Curr gets off to a somewhat rocky start as one of his employees has a hard time accepting that a man who looks and sounds exactly like her old boss (sans mustache) is an entirely different person.


Six days after William Carter's unexpected but not entirely unwelcome retirement, Goddard attorney Lily Fu happened to be watching when the elevator opened in time to see a rather unexpected sight.

"Mr. Carter?" she asked uncertainly. "What are you doing here?"

Carter laughed. "Oh, no, no, I'm not William Carter! I don't mind the comparison, mind you, because he did seem like a very impressive man when I met him! But we really look nothing alike so I can't say I understand the comparison."

Lily stared at him. He looked exactly the same as he had the last time she had seen him, including the pleasant smile that began to look increasingly deranged the more she looked at it, save for the fact he had shaved his mustache and was wearing a light blue suit instead of his customary blood red one.

"Um," she said.

"I'm actually his replacement! My name is Charles Curr. I'm sure I'll enjoy working with all of you greatly and we can be very productive," Carter said cheerfully.

His voice sounded exactly the same. This was clearly the same man.

"I just…" she trailed off, uncertain what was going on and why nobody else seemed to be saying anything. He couldn't really expect them to not realize who he was, did he? Was it part of her job description to go along with this?

Carter blinked and looked in her direction. "What was that, Lily?"

He even remembered her name and continued on with his insistence of using first names.

Suddenly Raimondi appeared at her elbow. "It is nothing, sir. She is surprised is all. We had not expected you today."

Carter smiled at him. "Oh, I know that! I was supposed to begin tomorrow but I just couldn't help myself! I am so excited to begin! Speaking of, where is Miranda?"

"I'm here, William," a voice called from one of the offices. Dr. Pryce.

"It's Charles now, Miranda. We talked about this," Carter replied, his smile not wavering.

"I don't have time for your theatrics right now," Pryce's voice replied, a little annoyed.

"You _always_ have time for my theatrics," Carter said fondly. "Well Lily, Leigh, I look forward to properly meeting you in the days to come. I'm sure we will work well together. And if not, well…"

With that he left.

Lily waited until the door to Pryce's office closed behind him before she said. "What the actual fuck?"

"Однохуйственно. Идиота кусок," Raimondi muttered to himself. "I did not expect this but perhaps it is not so surprising."

Lily raised an eyebrow. "Really? How is this not surprising?"

Raimondi glanced around. "Let us…adjourn to your office before we speak."

Lily followed his eyes. No one appeared to be paying any attention but she supposed there was no harm in making sure.

She led Raimondi to her office and took a seat behind her desk. He sat in one of the plush chairs in front of the desk.

"Please tell me I'm not going crazy here," she begged. "That was obviously William Carter. I saw him a week ago. He looks exactly the same. He sounds exactly the same. It's a little soon to tell but I'm getting the impression that he acts exactly the same."

"Well, perhaps not looks exactly the same," Raimondi said. "He shaved."

"That is the worst disguise I have ever seen," Lily complained. "And I have seen some really bad disguises! I used to be a bartender and some of the things the kids would do to try and look grown-up were completely unbelievable."

"I understand," Raimondi assured her. "It is not only your intelligence which feels it has been insulted."

"What is going on?" Lily asked. "Why did you stop me from saying anything to him? Why are we being expected to pretend that our boss is now a completely separate guy when he is, in fact, the same guy and not making much effort to hide that fact?"

"I do not believe you would have found the words anytime soon had I not intervened," Raimondi said. "And he would have enjoyed putting you on the spot. Curr has a sadistic streak as you may have noticed."

"Curr," she repeated. "Charles Curr. This is ridiculous. And you haven't answered my question."

"Am not in his confidence," Raimondi told her. "Can only speculate."

"That's better than I'm doing right now so feel free to speculate away."

"Carter was terrible boss," Raimondi said bluntly.

Lily hesitated. "I don't know if I'd go _that_ far."

"I would. And I know of others who, if they could, would have far greater reason to complain." He saw her questioning look and continued, "For legal reasons, perhaps best not to say."

"Well, he did make me fake a family emergency at the last Christmas party when he wouldn't let me escape a conversation with him and then asked way too many detailed follow-up questions when I turned up for the New Year's Eve party," Lily admitted.

Raimondi barked out a laugh. "Trust me. You are very lucky. Pray that luck holds with Curr."

"You act like he's some terrible person or something!"

Raimondi gave her an unimpressed look. "You will really say, in the privacy of this office, that he is not?"

She hesitated again. "I mean 'terrible' is such a strong word."

"Is warranted. You will see," he said. "Did I ever tell you how he recruited me?"

"No," Lily said. "I understand that it is a somewhat sensitive subject since he recruited you from the former Soviet Union."

"He breaks into my house one night and I come home and find himself seated on my couch in the dark, knowing altogether too much about my life and my work," Raimondi said. "He did make a very compelling, how you say, sale's pitch. Still, one does not forget an introduction like that."

Lily shuddered. "I should think not!"

"I take it your experience was different?" Raimondi asked rhetorically.

"I don't care how good the job is, anyone breaks into my home and is waiting for me when I get home and I'm calling the police. I don't care how good his job offer is. I went to Columbia. I have options."

"Then what did happen?"

Lily laughed lightly. "It's really not much of a story. He and Dr. Pryce came to the job fair my school had."

"What."

She laughed again. "Yeah, I know what you mean. Dr. Pryce looked so out of place there! If I didn't know better, I'd say Mr. Carter only came so he could drag her along because he thought her reaction was funny."

"That may very well be what happened," Raimondi said. "How did you come to his attention?"

"Well he insisted that everyone who stopped by defend some gross violation of human rights," Lily said. "He gave me the Puerto Rican birth control trials. Some people felt a little uncomfortable having to defend those things but they were all over and what we said wouldn't make a difference so it didn't bother me. I guess he wanted to see how we'd do having to defend extreme actions though I don't think I'll be faced with anything like that here."

"We can only hope," Raimondi said blandly.

"He threw a few more increasingly ridiculous questions at me, just to see if I could think on my feet and defend some shady choices," Lily continued. "Things like at what point during a zombie apocalypse do you leave the weak links to die and how to convince the rest of your group and what would it take for you to press a button that would kill a random stranger. It was kind of fun, actually."

"Not my idea of fun," Raimondi said. "But then, I did not become lawyer. You have at least heard the stories about Mr. Carter."

Slowly Lily nodded. "Well, hasn't everyone? They're just stories. Nothing can be proven."

"Ah, there is a very big difference between it did not happen and it not being able to be proven," Raimondi said. "Surely you have heard of the saying 'there is no smoke without fire.'"

"Sure but it's not a popular one in my profession," Lily said. "Perhaps the people down at the DA's office like it better. I can spread all the rumors in the world and they can be believed by everybody but that doesn't necessarily mean there is an ounce of truth to them."

"That is true," Raimondi conceded. "But if you are being honest you believe at least some of them, yes? He would want you to believe at least some of them."

"I…will concede that I have had some thoughts about some of them," Lily said. "A few people who quit suddenly and I haven't heard anything from since. But I'd rather not think they were true."

"Wishful thinking will not change anything."

"Neither will engaging in dark conspiracy theories!" she shot back.

"Peace. I only bring this up to explain one possible reason why he does what he does. I was speaking with coworkers who had worked here longer than I and they did not exhibit any emotion when Mr. Carter left. One even insisted that he would be back. I do not know if this is what he meant but I would not be surprised if it were the case."

"What? You think he's done this before? But he's so young," Lily protested.

Raimondi shrugged. "Or so he looks. I know nothing, only suspicions. But given the terrible rumors about him and the…demanding leadership style he exhibits, is not so much surprise he would retire early and gain clean start."

"I…suppose that if any of the rumors are true then it might be prudent, legally speaking, not to give people that long to really look into people and build a case," Lily said. "And why Goddard Futuristics may be liable for some of what Mr. Carter did, if he were to be gone than much of it goes with him."

"That is exactly what I was thinking," Raimondi said. "He also strikes me as a man who is easily bored. Changing up identities like this may be a way of keeping himself entertained."

Lily couldn't imagine changing her whole identity just to amuse herself. But, then again, she was also quite cognizant of the fact that she could not imagine herself making many of the choices Carter had made.

"But he barely put any effort into it!" she complained. "We all know it's him!"

"Yes," Raimondi said, nodding. "We do. But will you really be the one to accuse him of making all of this up and doing a rather poor job if it?"

Lily scratched the back of her neck. "I think I already did."

"No, no, you did not realize what you were supposed to accept as true. It is different," Raimondi said.

"Well then, no, I really don't want to have this conversation with him. I've heard him argue circles around people and I'd rather be able to still recognize he's the same person by the time I'm done," Lily replied. "Plus he kind of has this…I don't know, aura? Where I really don't want to see what would happen if I really piss him off which I might do if I refuse to accept the fact that, for some reason, he's pretending to be a completely different person and putting almost no effort into it."

Raimondi nodded approvingly. "Smart girl. This is how you will survive here."

Lily frowned. "Sorry, when you say 'survive' do you mean-"

"I said what I said," Raimondi interrupted. "Now, I must be going. Have not given Mr. Carter update on my work in several weeks and will have to introduce it to Mr. Curr."

"I…don't think I have anything I need to share with him but you really never know. Sometimes Mr. Carter came down just to see what we were doing and scare us into being more productive," Lily said. "Do you think if I just act like he knows all the things that I know that he knows he'll mind?"

"He might prefer it," Raimondi said. "He might not notice. If he reminds you he is new, beg apologies and say he is so good at job you forgot he just started."

Lily nodded and began wondering, not for the first time, why she didn't just take that job at General Motors.


End file.
